“Lifted Up: The Mystery of Sin and Salvation” | John 8:21-30

Today’s Gospel presents us with a dialogue that is both unsettling and filled with grace, a dialogue between Jesus and the people, and ultimately between Jesus and each one of us. The Lord speaks words that cut to the very core of human existence:

“If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”

These are strong words. They sound severe. Yet they are not spoken in anger, nor as a threat meant to intimidate. They are spoken with the urgency of mercy. Jesus is not condemning; He is warning. He is revealing the tragic consequence of unbelief, while at the same time opening the door to hope. For where belief is embraced, there is life, forgiveness, and transformation.

St. John shows us that Jesus is not foretelling punishment but uncovering a spiritual truth. To die in one’s sins is the natural outcome of rejecting the One who alone has power over sin. The words are severe, yet they remain an invitation to life.

At the heart of this passage, Jesus draws a clear distinction between mere knowledge and living faith. To “believe that I AM” is not simply to admit that Jesus exists, nor even to admire His words or works. It is to recognize Him as the source of life, the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the living presence of God among us—and to entrust ourselves to Him completely.

Jesus confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: humanity is born under the wound of sin, and by its own choices deepens that wound. Sin separates us from God, and without faith’s healing power, that separation remains. The tragedy of rejecting Christ is not simply sin itself, but remaining in sin, cut off from hope, healing, and mercy.

Faith is the gateway to life—not a matter of ideas alone, but the surrender of the heart. It means opening ourselves to Christ, allowing Him to challenge us, purify us, and remake us.

St. John Chrysostom explains that faith is the only way to leave behind the “old self.” To refuse faith is to cling to that old self, the part of us still ruled by sin. If that old self is not buried with Christ, it continues to dominate us. This is why Jesus says elsewhere:

“Whoever does not believe is already judged” (John 3:18).

Not because God delights in judgment, but that unbelief holds a person captive in sin, shutting the heart against mercy.

Thus, when Jesus proclaims, “If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins,”

His hearers answer not with faith, but with resistance:

“Who are you?”

Chrysostom describes this as spiritual blindness, a blindness not of the intellect but of the soul. Christ had already revealed Himself in word and deed, in power and in unity with the Father. Yet their hearts remained closed. They heard His words but rejected their meaning; they saw His deeds but refused to accept what they revealed.

And this question “Who are you?” continues to echo in our own lives, not always in words, but in the way we live:

· Who are you, Lord, to tell me how to live?

· Who are you to challenge my habits, my compromises, my sins?

Faith does not fail because Christ is unclear; faith fails because hearts resist conversion. We often want knowledge without transformation, clarity without commitment, and truth without surrender.

The tragedy is not that the Truth is hidden, but that it is rejected. Truth stands before us, yet we remain blind if we refuse to believe.

Faith does not require that everything be understood at once. God meets us where we are, in our questions and in our doubts, and asks us to trust Him with what we can grasp. Even when divine mysteries surpass our understanding, He patiently leads us toward deeper faith and life in Him.

Jesus answers the question definitively when He says,

“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM.”

It is on the Cross—through suffering, humiliation, and apparent defeat—that Jesus reveals Himself most fully. There, the true identity of God is unveiled: a God who loves without limit, who saves through self-giving, who conquers sin by bearing it.

The Book of Numbers (21:4–9) offers a striking and deeply symbolic image that illuminates the mystery Jesus speaks of in the Gospel. As the Israelites journey through the desert, their hearts grow impatient, and in their complaint and distrust, they turn against God and against Moses, forgetting His faithfulness and provision. This rebellion carries consequences: poisonous serpents enter the camp, and many are bitten. The people come to recognize that their suffering is bound up with their sin, and they cry out for mercy.

In response, the Lord does something unexpected. He does not simply remove the serpents, nor does He undo the suffering by force. Instead, He commands Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and raise it upon a pole. Anyone who has been bitten, if they look upon the serpent, will live. Healing comes not through denial of the wound, but through confronting it in faith. The very image associated with death becomes, by God’s command, an instrument of life.

The serpent, which in Genesis symbolizes sin, temptation, and death, is lifted up before the people. What once brought destruction is transformed into a means of salvation—not by its own power, but by God’s promise. Life is restored not by magic, but by obedience and trust: the wounded must look, must believe, must turn toward what God has provided.

This points directly to Christ. Jesus declares, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.” Just as the bronze serpent, a symbol of sin, brought life to the Israelites when lifted up, so Christ is lifted on the Cross.

In these events, God does not bypass human sin and suffering. Rather, He enters into it and transforms it from within. The desert serpent points prophetically to Christ, who will carry the full burden of human sin so that those who look to Him in faith may find life.

On the Cross, Christ takes upon Himself our pride, our self-reliance, our desire to be like God. The full weight of human sin rests upon Him—and in that very moment, the boundless mercy of God is revealed. In His wounds, we find healing.

Our wounds—the scars of sin, the fractures of the soul—are healed only in His wounds. Our sins are forgiven not by denial, but by transformation. Forgiveness is not merely the cancellation of a debt; it is the conversion of the heart in the light of Christ’s love.

We find healing at the foot of the Cross. There, in the wounds of Christ, mercy takes flesh. In the quiet of His suffering, our souls are made whole. Forgiveness is not merely a debt forgiven; it is sin transformed by the love of Christ poured out for us.

The Cross, then, is not merely an ornament or a religious symbol. It is the living mystery of God’s love a love that humbles itself, empties itself, and gives itself completely so that we might live.

Let us look to the Cross, not as something distant or merely historical, but as the present and living sign of God’s mercy. Bring your wounds, your failures, and your burdens to Him. In His self-emptying love, offered freely on the Cross, we are healed, made whole, and renewed.

Let us turn to the Cross with faith. In Jesus, lifted up, we find the answer to the question, “Who is this?” He is the Son of God, the Savior, the living expression of God’s mercy and love. Bring Him your sins, your pride, your reliance on yourself, and allow Him to heal you. In His wounds, there is life; in His Cross, salvation.

✍ Fr James Abraham